Google Chairman Eric Schmidt selling 2.4 million shares, worth nearly $1.5 billion

When I need cash, I go to the bank. (Or, more accurately, to a shoebox under the loose floorboard in my pantry. Shhhhh.) When the chairman of Google wants cash, he sells stock. According to an overnight SEC filing, Eric Schmidt -- as part of a prearranged trading plan -- is selling some 2.4 million shares of Class A Google stock. 

That's somewhere around $1.44 billion dollars worth, going by Friday's close of trading, which saw Google drop 1.88 to end the day at 604.64. Wowzers.

The SEC filing notes that before the sale, Schmidt owned 9.1 million shares of Class A and Class B stock -- about 2.8 percent of Google's outstanding capital stock. With that, Schmidt had 9.7 percent voting power. After the sale, Schmidt owns approximately 6.7 million shares -- about 2.1 percent of Google's total outstanding stock -- and will have 7.3 percent voting power.

Source: SEC

Phil Nickinson